


The Truth Makes Us Equal

by frenchposie



Series: Flowers in the Dark [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Cold, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fever, Fluff, Forgiveness, Heartwarming, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Revolution, Secrets, Sickfic, cough, sneeze, vulnerable Javert, vulnerable ValJean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:54:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frenchposie/pseuds/frenchposie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of the Flowers in the Dark Series.  After the near loss of her father, Cosette reads the book of truths he gave her and decides to go talk to the men who raised her.  After weeks of caring for an ill ValJean, Javert is tired and has come down with a cold.  Unwilling to admit that he is sick, he insists on taking part of the conversation.  A whole lot of fluff, angst, and care ensues. </p><p>Not nearly as serious as FinD, but hopefully heartwarming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Je vous pardonne

Cosette closed the small book that her papa had given her low those many months ago when he had thought he was dying.  She recalled how fidgety he and Javert had been in the following weeks.  Humorless smiles echoed the sentiment of hallowed eyes shadowed with insecurity. When she realized that the looks attitude shifts had to do with her having the book, she nearly gave it back.  She had almost lost them both over the course of the preceding months, and she didn’t want whatever was hidden within the pages of the book to engorge the rift.  

In the end, she had kept the book and read it.  Her heart had sunk with the realization that this wasn’t a story of three strangers that meant nothing in her life.  It was the story of her mother, the man she had come to know as her papa, and the man who she could easy call her father, had he ever allowed her to use the title.

These were the hidden pasts that darkened her papa’s eyes when she brought it up.  The numbered tattoo on his arm and how Javert knew it by memory.  The true love of her mother.  How much Javert had changed and why he called her his angel.  The past he never spoke of and the shame she saw in Javert’s eyes when he thought no one was looking.  Why Javert thought love was conditional and why her papa always did his best to exist by the letter of the law even though it caused Javert to roll his eyes when the two of them got drunk.  Perhaps most especially it explained why her papa was so gentle and why Javert was so angry by her papa’s calling her a street-rat.

She sighed.  She had not always been an easy daughter.  Quiet and reserved for the most part, she had been raised by a man of business and so she learned his mannerisms.  No matter what truths were held in the book in her hands, the fact of the matter was that it didn’t change who her papa was for her or what he had done for her.

“I’m not good enough, Marius,” she confided in him.  For a man to give up such prosperous wealth for her was unheard of.  She had pushed him to play, to imagine, to talk to her of the darkness within.  It sounded romantic at the time, and like a secret world that she would share with her papa.  In hindsight, she realized that world was reserved for Javert and her papa alone.  She was not invited into it.  But, as she looked at the book in her hands, she realized that she had been invited into it.  Not only that, but how she responded was very important.  If they thought she was casting them aside, she was afraid that she would lose them forever.

“You’re perfect.  They know that,” Marius told her, kissing her gently each time.  “They don’t deserve you.”  He didn’t like the idea that an ex-convict who had evaded the law raised his wife.  What if that got into society?  The gossip could damage his families standing forever.  The fact that Javert had not taken the man to jail did nothing to quench his fears. Suddenly, he found himself distrusting the man who saved him and the man who kept Paris safe.

“Not perfect,” she whispered and she believed it. 

“Don’t come in, Marius.  Just drop me off and return after dinner or tomorrow morning,” she said as they drove to her papa’s house. 

“Why?” Marius asked, his voice tense with anger. “You won’t let me read the diary or let me know what it says.  I only know that it upsets you.  I want to know why.”

“No,” she said, with a shake of her head, causing her blonde curls to bounce about her shoulders.  “My fathers have secrets.  Same as you or me.  They kept them from me for years.  I know what they are now. This doesn’t concern you.”

“You concern me,” he said, leaning across the fiarce and brushing some of her long locks off her shoulders. 

She entwined her fingers in his and kissed his hand gently.  “I appreciate it.  I do.  But, please let my family secrets stay within my family.  The only reason I know anything of your grandfathers is because we live there.  Family secrets should stay within the family.  Less gossiping that way.”

He looked her over and nodded once, taking his hand and leaning back.  She was lovely and it was love at first sight, but she could be so provincial some days.  If he didn’t know the secrets, he couldn’t protect them from the gossip. But, she was insistent and as long as she remained happy and tight lipped, he hoped it would all just blow over.

“Papa?  Javert?” Cosette said, coming into the house.  She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the driver click to the horses and start to bring Marius home.  “Are you here?”  Anxiety gripped her stomach for a moment.  She had sent word ahead that she was coming, but she thought perhaps they had gone out and not gotten back yet. ‘No,’ she told herself, ‘there are too many fires lit.’  She smiled a bit, hoping that the conversation would go well. 


	2. Ich vergebe dir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javert and ValJean prepare for Cosette and Marius' arrival. Javert starts showing signs of his cold.

Javert took a deep breath through his nose and held it.  Tears prickled at his brown eyes and he rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling.  Tugging at his blue wool uniform jacket he bit the inside of his cheek trying to stay the sensation that flooded his system. 

“Javert?” ValJean came up behind him, a large calloused hand wrapping around his midsection.  He felt the heat from the bigger man’s body side up next to him.  

Bringing a hand over his mouth, he pinched his nose closed. “Heh-Tchoo!”  He sneezed with a slight bend of the waist.  He released his nose and sniffed tentatively.  

ValJean’s brow furrowed in concern.  “Are you feeling all right?”

A stoic nod.  “Merely a sneeze.  I’m fine.”  He sniffed again.

Unconvinced, ValJean pursed his lips for a moment.  “You have been too hard on yourself.  Running yourself ragged between work and caring for me.”

A simple shake of his head, while he blinked rapidly.  “It’s nothing. You’re worth it,” he whispered.  He pulled his cuffs, so that they just peaked out from under the cuffs of his jacket as was regimentally acceptable. 

ValJean sighed heavily.  The past few months had been nearly impossible for the family to get through.  Angry words said to insecure people caused damage that ValJean was uncertain if they would ever fully recover from.  And, the book caused him more anxiety than the situation.  The book that he gave Cosette with all of the truths in it.  All of the secrets that she ever wanted to know about he and Javert.  He thought he was dying.  He thought she and Javert could talk over it.  He never thought he would be in a position to discuss it with her. He felt his heart clench with anxiety just at the thought. 

“Javert, you would tell me if you were ill, yes?” he nagged just a bit.

“Heh-eh,” Javert straightened, his hand over his nose and mouth again.  “Hep-Tchoo! Shchoo!” Heavier, wetter, the sneezes were followed by a wet sniff that ended in a snort.  “My apologies,” he said, moving away from his partner and pulling out a handkerchief.  He blew his nose briefly and tucked it up his sleeve. 

“Bless you.”  A pause and then, “You know you are under no obligation to have this conversation.  I’ll tell Cosette that you are unwell.”

Javert quirked a smile and rolled his eyes at ValJean.  “And then she’ll be up here, insisting on taking care of me until I feel better and nothing will get worked out.”  He suppressed two coughs.

“You’re sick.”

“I’m tired.”

“I’ll make her and Marius call it an early night.” ValJean promised.

Javert blanched.  “You don’t think that Marius will be here, do you?  I don’t want him knowing things.”  Perhaps foolishly, he had assumed that Cosette would not tell Marius their secrets.  He didn’t want the boy knowing them. 

“I assume so.  He is her husband, after all.  And, I know that you or I wouldn’t let her alone after such a book was given to her. I can only assume that he will respond accordingly.”

Javert sit heavily on the bed.  His breath caught in his chest. It was hard enough knowing that ValJean told his secrets to Cosette.  But, knowing that the society boy that she married also knew.  He couldn’t show himself.  He doubted he could ever show himself to her again.  In fact, if he didn’t lose his job over this, he would be very surprised. 

ValJean sat next to him.  “He’s a good man.  And your son in law.”

Javert shook his head.  “He’s a society boy.”

“He’s not out to get you,” ValJean said, his strong voice stable and deep.  “You are the great Inspector Javert.  He has more to fear from you.  Especially as the leader of that revolution.  So… you can’t let him see you sweat.”

“Heh-Hep-Tchoo!”  The sneeze bought on an ache in his back and head.  Perhaps he was coming down with something.  How tiresome.  “Or sneeze,” he grumbled, blowing his nose again.

ValJean smiled and ran his hand through Javert’s hair, testing for a fever.  If there was one, it was low.  Perhaps this was just a sniffle brought on by the ongoing stress.  He smiled lightly as he thought about how Javert would protest that he did not sniffle.  That children sniffle.  “You stay up here then.  You’re unwell.  You need rest.  I’ll tell them we need to do this another day.”

“Papa?  Javert?”  Cosette’s voice wafted through the house.  

“She’s here,” Javert said.  His heart pounded in his ears.  He felt nauseous and dizzy and wondered how much worse this must have been for his partner.  Cosette was his daughter.  She was his heart.  And now, Javert was being selfish and making this about him. “I’ll face them,” he said, straightening his posture and making sure that his voice was steady.  “For you.”

ValJean smiled, without saying anything.  He didn’t want to tell Javert how much happier he was to have Javert at his side or how much more secure he felt with him there.  “Thank you,” he whispered, standing and pulling his suspenders over his shoulders.  

“Be right down.  Make yourself comfortable,” he called down.  After a moment, he pulled Javert into his arms and kissed him gently. 


	3. Je vous pardonne, maman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio discuss the story of Fantine.

Cosette sat in the sitting room.  She felt like her breathing was echoing off the walls as hear heart pounded in her ears.  She was going to lose them.  She could feel it.  She hadn’t been a good enough daughter for fathers of such forgiveness.  She hadn’t done anything to make her mother proud. 

Her thoughts drifted to how sick Javert had been when he came to get her… how sick her papa had been and she didn’t even know.  She felt as though tears were precariously balanced in her crystalline blue eyes.  This was not about her.  This was about them.  She had to let them know that she loved them more than anything.  To turn the emotional support back on her – to make them support her through her sadness – would be drastically unfair.  This was so that they knew she was there for them.

She flashed back to a night when she was very small.  Javert and her papa were arguing over her… again.  _Javert’s voice kept getting louder and louder and then ValJean would shush him.  She had thought it was odd… his voice was so similar to the man who had chased them through various cities.  Javert  was angrier than she had ever seen him when she was awake.  She had forgotten what she had done, but it must have been dreadful to set him off so badly.  He slammed his fist into something hard… likely the table and said that their lives would have been better if she had never been born._     

A harsh shudder ripped through her.  After reading the diary, she realized how correct he was.  If her mother had not be tricked to believing that her father – her real father – loved her… if she had never been born… her papa and Javert would have been much better off.  She wondered if she should absolve herself of the family.  But, no… to walk away… it would hurt them.  More than her life already did.  More than she had when they came for her.  More than her existence already had. 

She sniffled wetly.  At least she had Marius.  He didn’t know the history.  He didn’t know what a wonderfully loving mama she had.  He didn’t need to.

She heard their footfalls and stood as they came into the room.  They greeted each other and sat down. 

Javert snorted and blue eyes looked over him critically.  “Are you all right?” Cosette asked, her voice calm in the tension.

“Hehcshhoo!” Javert sneezed once.  “I’m fine,” he rasped out gruffly, concerned that she would deflect them… again.

“Bless you,” ValJean stated calmly.  “Javert, you should take a rest.”

“I could leave,” Cosette said, suddenly.  The tension in the air was as dense as fog and if Javert was ill again, this conversation would only serve to anger him.

ValJean sat a little straighter.  “Is Marius here?  Not outside.  Cosette it’s freezing!”  He went to the door, but the second carriage was not there.

“Papa,” she said, calmly when he returned, “I could easily walk home.”

Irrational fear gripped ValJean.  “No, absolutely not.”

“Papa, it’s light out.  How much trouble could I get into?  It’s only a few miles.”

“The chill in the air isn’t good for you,” Javert admonished.  “You’ll catch your death.”

Blue eyes slid to the side.  _Like you’ve always wanted_ , she thought.  But, no.  Feverish and ill he had come for her.  But, he had said… so long ago…  “Then I’ll stay,” she said with more resolve than she felt.  “But, you’ll have to tell me when this becomes too much for you.  I can’t lose you – either of you.  And, I refuse to be the reason that you do not get well.”

The older men shared a look of admiration. 

“Do you have questions?” ValJean asked, his low tenor rumbling in his discomfort.  He was fearful of Cosette turning him away.  All of his sins were in that little book, which she held in her lap.  Everything that he ever sought to protect her from, she knew.  And, yet, she was there looking to protect them. 

“I just wish to understand the stories,” she said.  “Was my maman married?”

“No,” ValJean answered simply.  “She fell in love with a man undeserving.  By the time I knew her, he was long gone.  But, you were also a young child.”  He felt his breath constrict.  He hoped he would do her justice and that Cosette would continue to love her mother.   “She had a locket,” he pushed out, suddenly recalling something that he hadn’t thought of in a long time.  She showed it to me once when she worked under my management.  But, by the time I cared for her in the hospital she had been separated from it.” 

“Who was the inspector?”

Both men held their breath and Javert looked out the window, upset that he had insisted that he be there.   “A different person,” he answered, hoping that Cosette would yell at him and let him know how hurt that she was.  He would explain himself, of course.  But, he was certain her scorn would relive him of much of the guilt that he felt every time he looked into those eyes… those big, beautiful, strong eyes.

“Well of course.  I know papa wasn’t the inspector. But, who was he, Javert?  Do you know of him?  Certainly papa has told you this story before now.”

Javert looked up as an idea dawned on him.  Had ValJean not told Cosette how Javert fit into their past.  He looked over at ValJean, brown eyes wide with concern.

“I didn’t write the name of the inspector,” ValJean whispered, as though Cosette could not hear.

Javert paused, a thought dawning on him… a memory.  Something he hadn’t thought of in a long time.  “Excuse me,” he said, getting up, suddenly.  He strode out of the room.  No sooner was he out of the room than did he sneeze.  “Hetchhump!”  A few pants and then another, “Heetchhump!”  He was mildly aware that the other two had blessed him, but he continued on his path.

“That was odd,” Cosette stated.

“He doesn’t like to remember.  I don’t like to remember.”  ValJean was heartsick.  He knew Cosette would have questions.  He hoped that by leaving Javert’ s name out of it, he could salvage this family.

“I most humbly apologize, papa.  I feel bad for her.  I wish… “  The unshed tears streamed down her face. 

ValJean was about to say something when Javert strode back into the room.  He pulled up the ottoman and sat down in front of Cosette. 

“I have not thought about this in many years.”  His voice was rushed and louder than the room called for.  Casting a serious look to ValJean, he continued on.  “Your papa sought to protect me… as you sought to protect me.  But, this cannot be.”

She brushed the tears off her cheeks, now interested in the new puzzle unfolding before her.

Turning to the side, Javert sneezed, “Hepttsshh!”  “Do excuse me,” he said, after a congested sniff.

“Of course,” she said without thought.  It was unlike him to be so intense, but not angry.  “Javert…”  She paused when he held up a hand instructing her to do so.

“Your mother wore this locket,” he said, holding out an antique Bagatelle gold locket.  He handed it over to Cosette.  “I had taken it off of a woman who bartered things for a living.  I tried to find the rightful owner, a portrait of a daughter so fair would go missing.  But, no one could name your defining feature… your eyes.  I put it away and never thought about it again… but your pap.. when he said the locket… it suddenly dawned on me.  I don’t know why I didn’t notice before.  I apologize and beg your forgiveness.”  He hung his head.  Bringing up a fist to his mouth, he coughed into it.

Very carefully she scooped the necklace out of his hand.  Her mother must have come from a well off family to afford such a fine piece.  The portrait inside was worn with age, but her eyes were shining and blue even back then.   Simply holding such a piece in her hand made her feel closer to her mother than she had since she could remember.

She placed a hand on Javert’s shoulder, feeling his breaths deepen as she did so.  She was not certain if it was because he was going to sneeze again or because he was awaking something else. 

“Javert…” her voice was soft and searching.

He shook his head.  “No… this is more.”

“You don’t have to,” her papa said, cutting into the conversation.  “It was very fortuitous that you have the locket.  Let that be all for now.”

“Cosette, I am the inspector who tried to arrest your mother,” he said.  He flinched as her hand was quickly removed from his shoulder. 

Mouth agape and eyes wide, she looked at him as though he had turned into some inhuman monster.  His head pounded and breathing suddenly became restrictively painful.  He got up suddenly and paced to the window, hands clasped firmly behind his back.

There was a story there, Cosette knew.  One that had made sense to Javert at the time  - for that was the way he operated.  He did not do things out of whimsy or foolishness.  He had a set thought of motions and would make decisions from there.  If her mama had been a woman of the night as her papa had told of, Javert may have been doing his duty to get them off the street.  She decided to speak of it when she got him alone… if such a thing was possible on a night like tonight.

“Thank you for the locket.  I shall treasure it always,” she said, closing her slender fingers around the necklace.  Someday she would ask Javert how he came into possession of such a locket – but it was not this day.

Crystal blue eyes looked over her papa, who looked positively stricken.  “Thank you for telling me my mama’s story.  She was a truly strong and remarkable lady and I am proud to be her daughter.”  She smiled as he visibly relaxed at her words.

“For this I am glad,” he said, smiling a bit.  His line of sight clung to Javert, who had still not said anything. 

"I'm sorry ... I know that it was not my sin, my virtue that causes the two of you so much pain, but for my maman... I apologize for the hinderence she left on your lives."

Both men turned to her, shock evident in their faces.  "Cosette, what?" her papa said, trying to make sense of what had just happened.  "I regret nothing.  Well... I don't like that i turned someone out in such need."  

javert made a small huffing noise, but ValJean ignored it.  "But, I do not regret caring for her.  I do not regret taking you in.  And I do not regret raising you or our life together."

"But, if I had not burdened your life, you could have gone back to live with your family without disgrace."

Brows furrowed in confusion, ValJean wondered how far in the diary she had gotten.  He was about to ask when Javert interjected. 

"You are not a burden Cosette.  You never have been.  In fact, you are not the reason ValJean could not have gone back to his family without disgrace.  Toulon... the prison.  The fact that your papa was in prison is the shame that he carried going back to his family.  You are not his shame.  Just as you were not your mothers."

Too smart for her own good and, yet, younger than she felt, Cosette read between the lines and saw what she felt Javert was saying.   _Not their shame.  Merely yours,_ she thought, smiling sadly at him.  

Javert said nothing and turned to look out the window.

Sighing, Cosette looked at the locket and held it tight in her hand.  “I forgive you, maman.  Thank you for leaving me with such wonderful guardians,” she whispered.  "I hope to live a virtuous life to make you proud."

 


End file.
